


Calypso and Leo

by awayohumanchild



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:16:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awayohumanchild/pseuds/awayohumanchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calypso had been alone on Ogygia for three thousand years, give or take a decade or so. Occasionally, a hero dropped by, made her fall in love with him, and then abandoned her, breaking her heart into pieces. It was not a particularly happy life. To make matters worse, Calypso recently discovered that, despite the gods having promised to release her from her curse, she was still going to be stuck on Ogygia forever.<br/>Then, as if her life wasn't awful enough, Leo Valdez arrived on Ogygia in a fiery blaze that blew her dining table into bits. He was scrawny, rude, sarcastic and incapable of taking a hint. He was also going to be stranded on her island for the rest of eternity.<br/>The very last thing Calypso wanted was to be stuck with Leo for the rest of their lives. At least, she was pretty sure that was the last thing she wanted. Well, mostly sure. Kind of.<br/>Actually, maybe she needed to rethink some things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calypso and the Dining Table Destroyer

**Author's Note:**

> So. I finally read House of Hades and fell in love with Calypso and Leo and had to write something. I wrote this. It's kind of unedited and the end isn't an 'end' so to speak, but I had fun. I may end up writing the rest of Leo's stay on Ogygia from Calypso's POV, but there's a whole other story I should be focusing on so... well, who knows? Hope you enjoy it though!

Calypso had been happier before she had found out that Percy Jackson had made the gods promise to grant her amnesty and release her from her curse. Much happier, actually. Before she found out what Percy had attempted to do for her, she had nearly completed her grieving process. She had mourned losing Percy, had mourned the future they could have had together and had just about come to terms with being left on Ogygia all by herself again. 

And it had only taken her a year, too, which had given her an immense amount of satisfaction. It had taken her a little over a decade to come to terms with Drake leaving her and nearly half a century to reconcile herself to Odysseus abandoning her. Her ability to successfully manage heartbreak had clearly made vast improvements over the millennia and, given the nature of her curse, that was excellent news. She had been nearly giddy over her improvement.

Then she had watched the ‘monthly’ (well, for them it was monthly—for her, it could be anywhere between weekly and yearly, depending on how difficult time on Ogygia was being that particular ‘month’) meeting of the Olympians, as was her custom. Upon first arriving on Ogygia, she had set up a rather neat spell that allowed her to spy on the gods during their monthly meeting the day after it was held. She had tried for quite some time to shift the spell to allow her to spy on the gods in real time, but had been unable to manage it. Time and magic was difficult on Ogygia.

When the ‘monthly’ meeting had shown up on the surface of one of her fountains, she had been expecting to watch another tense meeting where the gods spent more time arguing with one another than they did doing anything productive. The situation with the Titans had been even worse than Percy had implied and had been only worsening. And the gods had never handled bad situations very gracefully.

While Calypso certainly hadn’t wanted Olympus to fall (she had become at least slightly wiser over the last three millennia—she may have been the daughter of Titans and she, unlike the Olympians, was capable of recognizing that the Titans could do good as well as bad, but that didn’t mean she was still blind to the Titans many, many, many faults), she couldn’t deny that she had taken a certain amount of satisfaction from their unhappiness.

They had imprisoned her on Ogygia for three millennia. While she knew logically that the Olympians had been fairly merciful to her, she still thought she was entitled to at least a little bit of resentment. And if all she did with that resentment was spy on their meetings and snicker over their idiocy…well, there was very little harm in that.

However, instead of seeing the gods arguing amongst themselves as she had expected, she had seen them united in irritation. Over the course of their meeting, Calypso realized that there had been a battle against the Titans in Manhattan (the place the gods resided, which was so crowded there was no room for gardens, she remembered) and that the gods, with the help of Percy Jackson, had won. Instead of arguing amongst themselves, the gods spent most of the meeting grumbling about Percy.

Apparently, as a reward for saving them, he had made them promise to claim all their children, to add houses at Camp Half-Blood for all the gods, major and minor, and he had made the gods promise to release Calypso from her curse. Well, admittedly, the gods had said that he had asked for amnesty for all their non-dangerous enemies, but it sounded as though she had been mentioned by name. Percy may have asked for more, but she wasn’t really sure. At that point, Calypso had been utterly unable to listen to the rest of the meeting.

She had been over the moon at the news. She had been convinced that Percy had realized that he had made a horrible mistake in leaving her, that he had asked for her to be freed because he loved her, that he would come and save her from her curse and then they’d live happily ever after. 

She had packed all of her belongings and then spent the next week staring at the horizon, waiting for the curse on her island to lift. 

It hadn’t.

Thinking that perhaps Ogygia had merely decided to be especially difficult and slow time down to a crawl, she had patiently waited for the curse to break. Another week passed, and then the ‘monthly’ (it had only been two weeks since the last meeting for Calypso) meeting of the Olympians showed itself in one of her fountains. 

A ‘month’ had passed, her curse hadn’t been broken and Percy hadn’t come for her yet.

Calypso had tried to convince herself that it was merely because everyone had been too busy handling the aftermath of the battle with the Titans. According to the meeting, the gods had been very busy the last ‘month’ but they expected everything to return to normal shortly.

Calypso had been convinced that her curse would be lifted before the next ‘monthly’ meeting.

It wasn’t. It wasn’t lifted before the ‘monthly’ meeting after that either. 

Percy Jackson didn’t come for her. 

Calypso’s resolve broke shortly after the third ‘monthly’ meeting she’d watched. She used her magic to look into Percy’s past and see what he’d been doing since he’d made the Olympians promise to lift her curse.

It turned out that he had been spending most of his time kissing a pretty blonde haired girl—his Annabeth, undoubtedly. He had not loved Calypso, like she had allowed herself to hope. He had not even cared about her enough to make sure the gods were following through on their promise. He loved his Annabeth. He was blissfully happy with his Annabeth. He hadn’t even spared Calypso a thought.

Two and a half years later (Ogygia time—she hadn’t seen a ‘monthly’ meeting since she peeked in on Percy and, to be honest, it was starting to worry her more than a little. When she’d used some magic to see how long it’d be until the next ‘meeting’, she had found out nearly a year had passed since the last ‘meeting’ she’d seen. The Olympians had blocked her somehow and it would take some serious magic to block her spells), Calypso could admit to herself that she had not handled the revelation well.

She had thrown all of her pots and pans at the wall, she had shrieked and screamed to the skies, she had cursed his Annabeth, she had broken her loom in a fit of frustration, and she had created some very mean songs decrying Percy Jackson as an awful person (who she loved—why did she still love him? He had forgotten about her! And she had doing such a magnificent job of handling her heartbreak before—) and even meaner songs that called the gods cruel, stupid and smelly.

And now, two and a half years later, Calypso had long since moved all of her belongings back into her cave. She had given up hope that Percy would come for her or that the gods would free her. She had done her best to resign herself to the fact that she was never going to leave Ogygia; that her curse would never break. 

She was not doing a very good job of it. Calypso always forgot how powerful hope was and how painful it was to have that hope torn away.

With a brisk shake of her head, Calypso did her best to dislodge such unhappy thoughts. It did no one any good, least of all her.

Calypso had lived on Ogygia for three millennia (Olympian time—by Ogygia reckoning, Calypso was still a few years shy of her third millennia). She could survive another three. 

In an attempt to cheer herself up, Calypso began to determinedly plan out enjoyable things for her to do with the rest of her day.

She was going to finish her work in the garden, she decided. Then, she was going to weave a magnificent tapestry depicting her beautiful fountains. Next, she would have her conjured servants make her favorite meal and she would eat it at her dining table and enjoy the view of her pristine beach. After dinner, she was going to compose a breathtaking melody on her harp to accompany the lyrics she had written the week before. She would finish her day by sitting on the beach and taking in the calming crash of the surf, soaking up the peacefulness of her beautiful—KA-BOOM!

Calypso shrieked and stumbled a few steps backward. Calypso wasn’t quite sure what it was she stepped on, but it most certainly was not solid ground as it immediately flew out from under her feet, making her lose her balance. With another shriek, she crashed into the ground, her head smacking into the hard dirt.

“OW!”

Calypso saw stars. For a moment, she just lay on the ground, blinking and trying to regain her bearings.

What in the gods had made that wretched noise?

After the stars went away, Calypso cautiously sang a note of her magic. Immediately, her head began to feel better. She struggled to her feet, her head still spinning slightly. 

Straight ahead of her, somewhere down the beach, she saw a column of smoke rising from the ground.

“Oh, no…” Calypso did not even want to think of what had caused it, but she knew she had to. If whatever it was had caused a fire, she would have to hurry to put it out. If she didn’t, all of her trees were liable to burn down and Calypso did not think that would help improve her mood.

She took off at a run.

The closer she got to the column of smoke, the more her heart dropped. It looked like whatever it was had happened near her dining table. She loved her dining table. She had made it herself, shortly after Odysseus left. It was one of the first projects she had successfully completed on her own. She had spent decades carving it and years putting the finishing touches on it. It had taken her weeks to decide where to put it and then a full day to drag it to the spot on the beach with the best view. She had picked her very best plates, goblets and cutlery to put on it. It was one of the very few bright spots in her miserable excuse of a life. If it burned—Calypso put on another burst of speed. She ran past the trees she had been afraid would catch on fire.

Finally, she reached the spot where her dining table used to be. In its place was now a giant crater.

Calypso felt a sort of helpless fury rise within her chest. She had so very little here. That dining table had been one of the few things in her life that could consistently make her happy. It had been a constant reminder of her resilience, of her ability to take heartbreak and make something beautiful out of it. Now it was gone.

Strangling a cry, Calypso trudged over to the crater, not wanting to see the poor broken remains of her table, but needing to see if there was anything that could be salvaged from it.

Calypso reached the edge of the crater and prepared herself to see her destroyed dining table. She took a deep breath, looked into the crater and—

“What are you _doing_? You blew up my dining table!” 

Instead of seeing the smoking remains of her dining table, like she had expected, Calypso found herself staring right at the culprit. The monster that had destroyed her table appeared to be a deceptively scrawny boy with wild hair, a sooty face and smoking clothes. He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her ruined dining table and cradling a sphere as it was his child. She was not, however, about to let his pathetic appearance distract her. He had used that sphere to purposefully destroy her—

“Oh, I’m sorry!” the culprit’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “I just fell out of the sky. I constructed a helicopter in midair, burst into flames—”

Wait, what? Calypso thought, suddenly baffled. Helicopter? Burst into flames? What did that—?

“—halfway down, crash-landed, and barely survived. But by all means—let’s talk about your dining table!” 

Calypso’s confusion immediately evaporated as the monstrous boy manhandled one of her poor ruined goblets and brandished it in her direction. 

“Who puts a dining table on the beach where innocent demigods can crash into it? Who does that?” the boy demanded.

Demigods? He was a _demigod_? So not only were the gods not breaking her curse like they had promised to, but they were now sending her inconsiderate, sarcastic, runty, dining-table-ruining demigods to her instead of decent ones? All of the frustration and resentment that had been churning inside her for the last two and a half years (Ogygia time) bubbled up once more

“REALLY?” Calypso shrieked to the sky. “You want to make my curse even worse? Zeus! Hephaestus! Hermes! Have you no shame?”

She vaguely heard the demigod saying something but she was too caught up in her fury to hear what.

“Show yourself! It’s not bad enough that I am exiled? It’s not bad enough you take away the few good heroes I’m allowed to meet? You think it’s funny to send me this—” Calypso briefly struggled for words to describe her fury with this boy who had destroyed her dining table and eventually gave up and shouted, the first description she could think of: “—charboiled runt of a boy to ruin my tranquility? This is NOT FUNNY! Take him back!” 

She waited for the gods answer.

Instead, the boy replied, “Hey, Sunshine. I’m right here, you know.”

A growl escaped Calypso’s throat. “Do not call me Sunshine!” She was so not in the mood for any games right now. He needed to leave and he needed to leave now. “Get out of that hole and come with me now so I can get you off my island!” 

Calypso did not wait for his response and instead whirled around and began to storm down the beach, glowering at the burning wreckage on her beach (at least there wasn’t any wreckage near the trees, a tiny voice whispered in her head). As if her situation wasn’t bad enough! As if she wasn’t suffering enough! Why did the gods insist on heaping insult on injury? She had been planning on having a nice day, for once! She had been planning on making herself happy!

And, instead, some runty, fire-happy demigod had destroyed her dining table and –she heard footsteps behind her. The demigod had caught up.

“This was a pristine beach!” Calypso gestured furiously at the burning wreckage on the formerly perfect white sand. “Look at it now.”

“Yeah, my bad,” the demigod behind her muttered. “I should’ve crashed on one of the other islands. Oh, wait—there aren’t any!” 

Calypso snarled and kept storming down the shore. He wasn’t even sorry! The demigod had ruined her dining table, her beach, and her entire day yet he had the gall to sound upset with her! 

As Calypso strode along the coast, she did her best to push away her fury and focus on the curse wrapping around the island. She hadn’t practiced any real magic in quite some time, but she had plenty of experience with her curse. Finally, she came to a spot on the beach where the magic making up the curse was particularly thick.

This would do.

She stopped, only to be jostled forward seconds later. 

“Gah!” She whirled around and grabbed the demigod’s arms to make sure he didn’t topple over. Calypso was briefly struck by how dark his eyes were. Dark like his soul, she thought grouchily, pushing him away. “All right,” she said. “This spot is good.” She could feel the curse magic swirling around them lazily. Normally it was faster by this point, but she was sure it would speed up soon enough. “Now tell me you want to leave.”

“What?” he asked.

“Do you want to leave?” she demanded. “Surely you’ve got somewhere to go!” Everyone always did. Well, everyone but her, that was.

“Uh…yeah,” he finally replied. “My friends are in trouble. I need to get back to my ship and—”

Calypso had no interest whatsoever in hearing about his life. She just wanted him to leave so that she could mourn her dining table in private.

“Fine. Just say, I want to leave Ogygia.” Calypso snapped. 

“Uh, okay. I want to leave—whatever you said,” the boy replied.

“Oh-gee-gee-ah,” Calypso said very slowly, hoping it would sink into his skull so that he could leave already.

The boy looked, if possible, even more irritated with her, but he obediently repeated, “I want to leave Oh-gee-gee-ah.”

The curse began to swirl a little faster.

Calypso sighed, feeling some of her fury dissipate. The curse was responding, so this must have been because his arrival was some kind of a mistake. The gods were not truly so cruel as to make her curse even worse than it already was. As soon as the raft arrived, he could leave to do whatever it was he had to do and she could go back to trying to accept the fact that her curse would never be broken. “Good. In a moment, a magical raft will appear. It will take you where you want to go.”

“Who are you?” the demigod demanded.

Her name was on the tip of her tongue, but she stopped herself. She wasn’t sure what he’d heard about her—according to Hermes, the story of the time she’d spent with Odysseus had gotten all turned around in the mortal world. It would be simpler if he just didn’t know her name. Besides… “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be gone soon.” The curse’s speed was steadily increasing. In a few more seconds, the raft would arrive. “You’re obviously a mistake.” 

The gods were cruel enough to leave her here despite their promise. They couldn’t be cruel enough to make her already bleak situation even bleaker.

Calypso waited for the raft. The curse kept spinning faster and faster and faster. She was starting to feel a little bit concerned. The raft should have been on the horizon by now. Actually, the raft should have been at the island already and the demigod should have been boarding and leaving.

“Any moment now…” Calypso stared at the horizon intently.

No magical raft appeared.

“Maybe it got stuck in traffic,” the boy suggested drily.

“This is wrong. This is completely wrong!” The curse was spinning fast enough that it had to have been doing something and the gods could not be so cruel as to make her bad situation even worse by making her stuck with him. They couldn't be!

“So… plan B? You got a phone, or—”

“Agh!” 

He was still here, the curse was still spinning and the raft still hadn’t come! Calypso spun around and stormed away, picking up more and more speed the closer she got to home.


	2. Calypso and the Demigod Who Couldn't Take a Hint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calypso runs home in an attempt to be alone. The demigod who crashed into her island does not take the hint and follows her there. Calypso is not happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... I did not mean to continue this. I have other stuff I'm supposed to be working on. But I kinda continued it anyway? I still do not mean to continue this. But I might? Who really knows, at this point?

The moment Calypso entered her garden, she made a beeline towards where she had dropped her trowel. Her head was spinning. The first thing she had been planning on doing to make herself happy was finish working in her garden. She had several seeds she had been planning on planting. And she was going to do it. She was going to plant her vegetables and forget that a dining table destroying demigod was still somewhere on her island.

Calypso flung herself to the ground, picked up her trowel and began digging with a passion.

She was _going_ to have nice time today. She was. She was going to forget about the demigod who crashed into her island and destroyed her table. Instead, she was going to garden and weave a tapestry and write her lyrics and she was not going to let the gods ruin her life any more than they already had.

She was not going to give the Olympians that satisfaction. They were clearly trying to mock her. They must have been. There was no other explanation. The gods must have found out that she had been spying on their meetings, asked Hecate to break the spell connecting her to the meetings and then completely overreacted to her harmless espionage by sending her that rude, runty demigod.

And to think she had been worried about the Olympians! Ha! She should have known better than to care about those selfish, arrogant, cruel, self-absorbed, overgrown children! They never bothered to look at things from another person’s point of view and she doubted they would even be able to define compassion.

She had been alone for three millennia! And when she wasn’t alone, the Fates were taunting her with the fact that she would be alone again soon, that no one ever cared enough about her to want to stay. Was it so awful that she had watched the Olympians’ meetings? Was it so awful that she had supported her father? No! It wasn’t! Her punishment was too severe for her crime!

And to make her punishment even worse by finally answering her prayers for companionship—only to make her ‘companion’ someone rude and selfish, someone she could never truly become friends with!—it was cruel! Unconscionable! As long as that demigod was on Ogygia, she’d be constantly reminded of how alone she was and—Calypso cursed vehemently. She had dug the hole too deep. The seeds would never flourish at that depth.

Calypso continued to mutter curses under her breath as she shoved dirt into the hole she had just dug and then began to attack the soil on the other side of the hole.

Nothing was going right today! She couldn’t even properly work in her garden anymore and her table was—Calypso had always been convinced that no matter how horrible the circumstances were, beauty would always find a way to shine through. The dining table, to her, had been proof that she was right.

Nothing had ever hurt her so much as Odysseus leaving Ogygia had. But it was because of that horrible pain that she had been able to make her beautiful table. And now it was gone. Calypso swiped at her eyes furiously before returning to digging.

Nothing beautiful remained. Flowers died. Clouds covered up the stars, the sea turned cruel, heroes left her and dining tables blew up. Beauty was temporary. Only pain seemed to be eternal.

Only—Calypso began to swear more vehemently.

The dining-table-destroyer had followed her back to her garden. And he was walking towards her. Calypso turned all of her attention back to the soil, hoping that if she appeared suitably engaged, the demigod would leave her be.

She had once again dug the hole too deep. But she kept digging anyway, staring at her trowel and the ground intently, even as her vision blurred further and the stupid tears kept stubbornly running down her face.

The demigod came to a stop just off to her right.

“I think you’ve punished that dirt enough,” he offered.

She glared up at him. “Just go away.”

The demigod stared at her for a moment and then he said, “You’re crying.”

He had noticed.

“None of your business.” Calypso just wanted to be left alone. “It’s a big island. Just… find your own place. Leave me alone.” He’d never been to the island before, though. So maybe he didn’t know where a good place was. “Go that way, maybe.” Calypso waved toward the south end of the island. He’d probably like it over there well enough. And Calypso rarely visited there.

“So, no magic raft,” the demigod said. “No other way off the island?”

“Apparently not!” She glared at him. If there had been another way off the island, she would have been rid of him already!

“What am I supposed to do, then? Sit in the sand dunes until I die?”

“That would be fine…” Wait. No one died on Ogygia. Calypso cursed and threw her trowel to the ground, giving up on having a good day. She should just admit that it wasn’t going to happen. Her day had been good and ruined. “Except I suppose he _can’t_ die here, can he?” She was going to be stuck with him forever. This was completely unfair. “Zeus! This is not funny!” She had been dreading spending a hundred years with him. To think he would be on her island for the rest of eternity… Calypso suppressed a shudder.

“Hold up. I’m going to need some more information here.”

Calypso reluctantly turned her attention back to the demigod. He looked slightly alarmed.

“You don’t want me in your face, that’s cool. I don’t want to be here either. But I’m not going to go die in a corner,” he told her. “I have to get off this island. There’s _got_ to be a way. Every problem has a fix.”

Calypso couldn’t stop a bitter laugh from escaping. She had spent over three centuries trying to escape this island before finally resigning herself to her imprisonment. Every problem had a fix? “You haven’t lived very long, if you still believe that.”

The demigod persisted though. “You said something about a curse?”

Calypso took a deep breath in through her nose and flexed her fingers, trying to keep calm. If he was going to be stuck here with her, she supposed she’d have to tell him eventually. She might as well tell him now. Hopefully, she could conduct all necessary conversations with him today so that, after this nightmarish day ended, she would never have to speak to him again.

“Yes. I cannot leave Ogygia. My father, Atlas, fought against the gods, and I supported him.” Calypso simplified her situation as much as she could. There was no need to go in to detail. Besides, maybe if she simplified it, it wouldn’t hurt so much.

“Atlas,” the demigod repeated. “As in the _Titan_ Atlas?”

She rolled her eyes skyward. Were there any other Atlases? “Yes, you impossible little…” Calypso stopped herself. Arguing would just make this conversation last longer. She continued her story in the simplest, least emotional terms possible. “I was imprisoned here, where I could cause the Olympians no trouble. About a year ago, after the Second Titan War, the gods vowed to forgive their enemies and offer amnesty.” So much for that, Calypso thought, something in her chest squeezing. “Supposedly Percy made them promise—”

The demigod interrupted, “Percy? Percy Jackson?”

Hearing the demigod say Percy’s name was like a punch to the stomach. Calypso closed her eyes in an attempt to regain her control. She didn’t need this demigod to see her pain. A tear escaped anyway.

“Percy came here.”

Such a small sentence should not be able to bring up so much sadness and anger and feelings of betrayal.

Calypso dug her fingers into the comforting soil, attempting to ground herself in reality.

She tried to continue her story. “I—I thought I would be released.” The words were hard to get out. “I dared to hope… but I am still here.” Hope was horrible thing. Calypso wished Pandora had shut the box before it could follow the monsters out. Hope only led to disappointment.

“You’re that lady,” the demigod said. “The one who was named after Caribbean music.”

“Caribbean music.” Calypso couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had been named when the Titans still ruled the world; when humans were still mewling babes unable to start even the smallest of fires. Her name had been hers—and only hers— for millennia and this tiny, painfully young demigod was saying that she was named after _Caribbean music?_

“Yeah. Reggae?” the demigod shook his head while Calypso stared at him in disbelief and growing fury. “Merengue? Hold on. I’ll get it.”

She gaped at him.

He snapped his fingers and his face lit up with a pleased smile. “Calypso!” He looked incredibly proud of himself for a brief moment before his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “But Percy said you were awesome. He said you were all sweet and helpful, not, um…”

The ache in her chest at the thought of Percy calling her ‘awesome’ and ‘sweet’ disappeared immediately. She shot to her feet. “Yes?” she demanded.

“Uh, nothing,” the demigod said.

How dare he judge her? He knew nothing about her, much less what she’d been through!

“Would you be _sweet_ if the gods forgot their promise to let you go? Would you be sweet if they _laughed_ at you by sending another hero, but a hero who looked like—” Calypso struggled to put her thoughts into words and then gave up, “—like _you_?

“Is that a trick question?”

Calypso cursed, spun around and marched into her cave. That conversation was going nowhere and if she didn’t leave soon she was going to cry again.

Maybe she should skip gardening and go straight to weaving. She liked weaving. Maybe that would make her happier. Calypso walked over to her wash basin and began to clean off her hands.

She sincerely doubted weaving would improve her mood, but she supposed it couldn’t hurt to try.

The demigod stormed into her home, came to an abrupt stop and then gaped.

Calypso glared at him a little halfheartedly. The boy seemed incapable of taking a hint. She wished he would just leave her alone so that she could try to calm down and come to terms with him being a new permanent fixture on her island.

The demigod cleared his throat. “So… I get why you’re angry. You probably never want to see another demigod again. I guess that didn’t sit right when, uh, Percy left you—”

If only her pain about Percy leaving was all she had to deal with.

“He was only the latest. Before him, it was that pirate Drake. And before him, Odysseus. They were all the same!” Tall, handsome, funny, brave, passionate, kind… “The gods send me the greatest heroes, the one I cannot help but…” Calypso couldn’t bring herself to say it. If she did, she knew she’d start crying again and that was the last thing she wanted.

The demigod finished her thought for her. “You fall in love with them. And then they leave you.”

Calypso blinked rapidly and tried to hold back her tears, tried to speak evenly. “That is my curse. I had hoped to be free of it by now, but here I am, still stuck on Ogygia after three thousand years.” She did not deserve this, Calypso thought tiredly. She had supported her father and she had spied on the Olympians so she supposed she deserved some punishment. But to be left by herself for three thousand years, to be abandoned by the few who did visit her… no one deserved that.

“Three thousand. Uh, you look good for three thousand,” the demigod stuttered.

Calypso ignored him and continued her thought. “And now… the worst insult of all. The gods mock me by sending _you_.” Someone rude. Incapable of taking a hint. Sarcastic. Antagonistic. Short and weedy and plain looking. A dining-table-destroyer.

“Fine.” The boy’s voice was suddenly stiff.

Calypso blinked and looked up at him. He looked… hurt? She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She just—

“I’ll leave you alone. I’ll build something myself and get off this stupid island without your help.” The demigod sounded so determined, so convinced.

The poor boy had no idea. He actually thought he could get off Ogygia. Calypso felt a sudden stab of sympathy for him.

“You don’t understand, do you?” she asked. “The gods are laughing at both of us. If the raft will not appear, that means they’ve closed Ogygia. You’re stuck here the same as me. You can never leave.”

He stared at her, his jaw set, and said nothing. His eyes were flashing and he clearly did not agree.

He would learn, sadly.

Calypso sighed and reached for the towel next to the basin. She slowly dried her arms off.

“What is your name?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed, but he answered, “Leo Valdez.”

“Well, Leo Valdez, I cannot say I am happy to have you here, but as there is nothing either of us can do about it, I suppose…” Calypso sighed again. The boy had crashed into the island with nothing but that strange sphere he’d clipped to his belt.

If she was going to spend the rest of eternity coexisting with him, she supposed she ought to do her best to make sure things were at least slightly cordial between them.

“One moment before you leave,” Calypso told him. Then she turned to one of her conjured servants. “Three drop cloths, please.”

The servant whisked off and then quickly returned, depositing the drop cloths in Calypso’s waiting arm before returning to its assigned duty.

Calypso turned back to Leo Valdez, “It gets cold at night.” She offered him the drop cloths.

He scowled at her but took them nonetheless. “Thanks,” he muttered. “And I _am_ going to find a way off this island. Just watch me.”

With that, he marched away.

For a moment, she stared after him. Now that she once again alone with her thoughts, she felt strangely empty. Her anger had drained out of her, leaving nothing behind. Slowly, Calypso turned towards her loom.

She had been planning on weaving. She had thought it would make her happy.

Calypso doubted it would make her feel anything. But she was on an island with no one but a demigod who had broken her dining table and whose feelings she had probably hurt. She had nothing else to do.

So she sat at her loom and began to weave.


End file.
